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|Mayhem!Mayhem!Mayhem!Mayhem!Mayhem!Mayhem!Mayhem!Mayhem!Mayhem!Mayhem!|
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=> Warning! This fic contains excessive amounts of sugar! With
Valentine's day nearing, every single media in existence has been
turning out sugar bombs that try to mutate all of us into starry-eyed
idiots. Sad to say, they have converted me into their sorry lot.
=> Although I'm *not* proud to be among the few people who dread the
coming of February, I am forced, under the pain of insanity, torture,
slow death, (and lots of other horrible things to graphic to mention),
to write this fic. Writing romance stories makes me feel all good
inside. <gasp> It's starting already! Somebody! Whack me on the
head! <Whack, whack> Thanks, I needed that.
=> I'm warning you at this point in time that the fic has a *really
cheesy ending*.
=> Also, the plot (actually the ending) is not really my original idea.
I would like to thank my contributor (who still desires to remain
nameless) for coming up with the cheesy ending that started the wheels
turning in my mind to come up with a story to match. May she (and all
those other nameless people) find our own cheesy ending sometime in the
foreseeable future.
=> Some notes on notation. Things in {curly braces} are author's
comments within the fic. Signs and sound effects are in... uh...
<pointy braces>
=> The disclaimer is at the end, and the more people I would like to
thank.
=> Will somebody whack me so I can start? Thanks.
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Twenty Less Lonely People in the World
<otherwise known as Mayhem's Valentine Fic with the Cheesy Ending>
By the currently sessile (not senile) Nikholas "Mayhem" F. Toledo
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{
Mayhem took a cold sip of ice tea. He noticed the two staring at him a
bit strangely.
"..."
"Uh... Have I been overdoing the 'Junior' gag?"
"..."
"Fine..."
}
Chapter Seven
Getting back together again
"So, he's lost his father, huh?" Yuka asked as Sayuri fuzzed over
the "littl' thing." It was a slightly long line to the film and no-
finesse martial arts fights were to be strictly avoided in the meantime.
Akane tried not to look back where Ranma's arms were being used as a
rope in a tug of war. "I can't believe I'm pretending to be married
that big idiot over there," she said, for the benefit of anyone who
would have been listening. She sighed. And she thought that she had
gone somewhere with him today. A startling thought came over her.
"Soulmates?"
Ryoga walked quietly behind Akane. Ukyo was quietly giving him
the "go ahead, jackass or else..." look. He remembered the conversation
he had with Ukyo right after her discovery. She did slap him, recalling
the fact that P-Chan had this regular habit of sleeping in Akane's bed.
"What kind of pervert are you?!?" she had said then, just as she was
about to flatten him with mighty, mighty spatulae. He was fortunate
that the desperation of the situation made itself apparent to Ukyo.
Ryoga could not believe the way Ranma's father is, using a poor
and innocent little kid in a last ditch attempt to put Ranma and Akane
together. (Of course, he did not think the same way about Mr. Tendo,
since he was Akane's father and such.) First, he engaged Ranma to
Akane, then engaged him to Ukyo, then he...
Wait a second, Ryoga thought. Why did he suddenly think about
Ukyo? She was his best friend, or the closest a martial artist could be
to another martial artist, aside from marriage. They were kindred
souls, both of them loving someone who only thought of them as friends.
Of course, they did argue about what each found in each other's beloved,
thinking each other was trash or totally uncute, but those things didn't
last for long.
No! He couldn't think of Ukyo that way. That would have been a
false ending, and not a real happy one that he had dreamed for all this
time. He couldn't do that. That would be cheating. That would have
been something Ranma would have wanted. With his courage resolved, he
walked side by side with Akane.
Akane looked at Ryoga's hard and resolute face as it gazed on the
ground. He was a friend, a best friend. The only person in the mad
world who was kind and gentle all the time, not like Ranma who had these
strange mood swings every once in a while. She sighed. Was it fate
that drove Ranma and her apart whenever things got rough? She
remembered what Mio had said. "Soulmates are constantly driven apart by
external forces and put together by internal forces. However, karmic
partners, though hard to find, have generally have a happier life than
soulmates."
She thought quietly for a little while. It was so obvious, she
wondered why she didn't see it before.
And, as they entered the dark theater, she tenderly reached out
and linked arms with Ryoga.
{
initialize seating_arrangement = [aisle, Gosunkugi, Mio, Sayuri,
Hiroshi, Daisuke, Yuka, Akane, Ryoga, Ukyo, Ranma, Shampoo, Junior,
random(people.names), aisle]
location(Nabiki_Tendo) = location(Tatewaki_Kuno) =
MovieTheater@TheMostExpensiveSeats
}
Ukyo smiled quietly to herself in triumph. In the dark, she saw
Akane leaning slightly on Ryoga in the seat to her left. At last, she
had finally managed to link Akane with Ryoga. Only one more thing left
on the hitlist. She glared at the person to her right. "Shampoo," she
whispered, leaning over, "where's Mousse?"
There was a visibly reddening hue that crept over Shampoo's face
visible even in the dark. "SHAMPOO NO CARE!" she said quite loudly,
and was hurriedly booed from behind. Ukyo snickered, "seems like she
was thinking about him." She sighed contentedly, leaning on Ranma's
shoulder, "well... I guess, that's that."
"Or is it?" Ukyo's conscience began bothering her. "What about
Ryoga? Aren't you jealous?"
"Jealous?" Ukyo argued in her head. "Me? Jealous about Ryoga?"
"You almost reduced him into a 2 x 4 slab on the ground when you
found out that he was sleeping with Akane, now, you did."
"Hey... That doesn't count, you know."
Ukyo sighed. She was arguing in vain. Yes, she did felt jealous
when he found out that he was already sleeping with Akane. Memories
flooded her vision of the time in the cave when everyone else thought
that they were together. They fought everyone from every side, even
Ranma and Akane, insistently denying that anything was there. And when
Ryoga left on one of his long trips, there were still lots of questions
left unanswered, lots of uncomfortable questions.
That's why she was doing this. Because she did not want to face
the answers. Because she was afraid of what she might find. All that
mattered to her was Ranma, the only person in her heart. There was no
room for anyone else there... save for...
It bothered Shampoo the way Mousse walked out from the Cat Cafe.
Of course she did not care for him, she thought. She just missed the
attention he was giving her.
Still, the laws of the tribe went above anything else. And, even
if she did care for him, she still had to marry Ranma, no matter what.
There was something that Mousse said, Shampoo recalled. Something
about going after her dreams, to follow where her heart goes... "Mousse
probably want me to go against tribe." But she smirked. "But what
tribe want, Shampoo want..." And the tribe wanted Ranma to be her
husband, to add to the strength of the clan. And so, she loved Ranma,
because the tribe loved him.
A small part of her yelled in protest, but she buried it under a
ton of popcorn.
Ranma yawned as the movie began. Not really digging these romance
things (his father said that real men are not romantic, that only power
was important), he found himself yawning. The movie was about this bald
man with glasses who was running away from his wife, who had brown hair
tucked into a coif, because of some lame promise he made to her that he
couldn't keep. "What a cheesy plot," Ranma found himself snickering.
Most of the movie was devoted to an explanation of honor and such and
such that the bald man made to his friends, but inside, he was just
running away. There was a lot of angst, both on the part of the wife
and the husband about being kept apart, and other details that Ranma
didn't really find important.
Then the wife came over to visit the house the bald man was
staying in because of a phone call from one of the daughters of the
owner. Everyone in the house knew of the bald man's problem, and tried
to hide him from the wife. That is, except for one woman dressed in a
one-piece yellow mini-skirt whose name Ranma couldn't quite catch, who
wasn't able to get the whole story. So when the men were away (the men
empathized with the plight of the bald man, but the women in the movie
snickered at him behind his back), the wife and the named-but-couldn't-
be-recalled woman (who had romantic links with the owner of the house
that the bald man was staying, but that was another story) talked for a
little while.
Another scene, the bald man was sitting by the side of some river,
talking to the owner of the house (who had really long black hair, and
also felt the same way with the unnamed woman, but vowed to remain
faithful to his wife who was dead for years) about reuniting with his
wife but being afraid all this time. It was a very touching scene,
which was hailed by the critics as the winning part of the movie, where
the macho image that the bald-man projected collapsed because of being
kept away from the woman he loved.
The climax of the scene came when the husband and the wife finally
met when the two fathers arrived from the riverbank. Everyone expected
the bald man to run away, but they met each other in a long and
passionate embrace which left half the audience crying. The wife
declared the promise null and void because that was the one thing that
kept them apart after all these years. "I don't care about the
promise," the wife said, holding the bald man with tears in her eyes,
"all I need is you." The wife and the husband looked longingly into
each other's eyes and kissed as the sun set in the background. The
credits rolled across the screen as the house owner and the unnamed
woman looked on, wishing that someday they too will find the courage to
take a step forward.
Daisuke and Yuka took their leave immediately after the end of the
movie, just in case the cease-fire between the martial artists ended.
Sayuri was crying all over Hiroshi's arm. "Did you see how he held
her..." she cried, taking a few proffered tissues. Gosunkugi and Mio
mysteriously disappeared when no one was looking, but most of the people
did see a dark shadow moving through the crowd. Ranma woke up from his
sleep when the lights went on again, and Ryoga was more or less
unconscious, too, for other reasons. Akane and Ranma stared angrily at
each other for a little while when they found out who each was with
during the course of the movie, then decided to pointedly ignore each
other for the rest of the day. Ukyo was glaring at Ryoga, who woke up a
little bit later under Ukyo's harsh gaze. Shampoo just sat quietly in
her seat.
Soun and Miss Hinako left the two other significant adults. They
had a lot of catching up to do.
"Where's Mousse?" Akane found herself asking Shampoo, thinking
that he was somewhere with them.
A loud whoosh answered Akane as the silver screen burst into
flames.
"RANMA SAOTOME! PREPARE TO DIE!"
The chopsticks Kasumi was using snapped in two. "A bad omen," she
said, hurriedly leaving the house.
Nikholas F. Toledo Zu @ http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Flats/3145/mezza9.html
Vector, Switch, Yebah, Rain Man, goo, Pervert, Scruples, Hollie, NomaD,
Blitz, Gee, Datzo, Jewel, Elf, Radler, Pinball, Mayhem, Chaos, Father, Attar
Fanfiction @ http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Flats/3145/fanfics.html
Warp Zone @ http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Flats/3145/thirteen.html
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The logo of the Church of All Worlds is nine concentric circles.
Word from the Laity: Wipe yer feet! Bloody 'ell...
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Gallery/3145/index.html
Currently under construction... confessional at the links.
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